Things were… awkward.
Not unexpectedly! With everything that had happened, Aang would have been a bit silly for thinking things wouldn't be at least a little awkward. It usually was at least a little, even though it had been a few years.
Still. The expectedness did little to dull it.
He glanced over his shoulder for a moment, his gaze landing on Katara. He smiled softly at her resting form, at her untroubled expression, and at her relaxed posture.
This vacation really was what they'd needed. It wasn't like they were missing anything especially important at the moment, with how calm the United Republic was becoming, and taking some time to relax, just the two of them, without having to worry about running from the Fire Nation or training or fighting, was wonderful.
He resisted the urge to let out a small scoff at the thought of Sokka and his joke that Aang had already had a hundred year vacation. In truth, neither of them were actually relaxing all that much, and no one he'd told had believed him when he'd said he was taking a break. He hadn't even believed himself.
He was self-aware enough to know that even if he had disguised himself and left everyone behind, even Appa and Momo, he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from helping people in need.
Katara shifted slightly in her sleep, and Aang was unable to suppress a sigh of happiness. He was taking a break from the big challenges, traveling and experiencing the wonders of the world without having to look over his shoulder constantly, and falling ever deeper in love with Katara.
Aang looked away from his girlfriend and back towards the figures sitting around the campfire with him. They wore a smattering of different, slightly worn clothing that marked all them as natives of the Earth Kingdom. When they'd been flying overhead searching for a good place to make camp for the night after spending an hour looking up at the starry night sky, talking, they'd seen a bright ember hidden among the tall trees on the horizon and been intrigued.
Of course, after introducing themselves and asking if they could make camp with them, not one of them had raised a word of protest after they'd gotten over their shock.
They hadn't said much of anything, actually. If Aang had to guess, they had probably been preparing to tuck in for the night when he'd landed.
He didn't have any desire to keep them up, obviously, and he wanted to get to sleep, but from what little they'd said to him, in between the 'thank yous' and respectful bows, as with so many others he'd spoken to, he assumed they didn't want to leave him on his own. Maybe they thought it would be disrespectful?
He wouldn't have felt the least bit disrespected, but he hardly wanted to make them think they had and he was upset with them or something. "Are any of you on watch tonight?" he asked, making a bit of small talk.
His question didn't do much to alleviate the awkwardness. The four men looked at each other and silently quibbled, until the merchant named Diu rambled about how it was his turn to be on watch, but that they didn't expect much trouble. Haltingly, he explained that they were making a trip from their villages scattered in and at the feet of the Xishaan Mountains to a settlement on Chameleon Bay to sell some surplus goods their towns had made.
He almost triumphed over his nervousness, explaining with a wide smile that they hadn't been able to do that with the increased war taxes and fear of an attack, either from the Fire Nation or, more likely so far away from the frontlines, bandits.
Then, with the topic of conversation sinking into the war, he started tripping over his words again until he trailed off at the end by giving Aang yet more thanks and gracious, nervous looks for making the roads safer than they had been in living memory.
The conversation dried up once more, and Aang fought the urge to sigh. He liked being appreciated for his work, but they'd already given him thanks. Why couldn't they all just relax a little, maybe-
Aang's pensive frown flipped into an upright grin. "Well," he said, "it is getting late. To pass the time before we head to bed, how about we tell some stories?"
All of them were once more shocked out of their collective, pensive stupor, and agreed with him quickly that that didn't sound bad. "What about you all? What stories do you have to tell? Or would you like me to go first?"
Their tiredness and nervousness slightly abated, they agreed that they would like to hear a story or two. When he asked which story, their nervousness receded even further.
Unfortunately, that nervousness was replaced with an argument.
"I have heard that you fought an entire army by yourself at the Northern Pole," Kyung said. Emboldened, Yun added, "No, let's hear about the time he faced down traitors to the Earth Kingdom while in Ba Sing Se." Binh remarked, "Is it true that you crossed the entire Si Wong desert in an hour? Can you tell that story instead?"
"And let's not forget," Diu said, his voice raised an octave above the rest, "That he faced down the Fire Lord himself. Do you all really think any story compares to that one?"
The others all looked ready to keep arguing.
"Actually," Aang cut in, "I've thought of a story I can tell." They all nodded rapidly, deferential to a painful degree.
Instead of telling them any of the stories they'd asked him about or talked about him supposedly doing, he instead told the story of a small village. He told them how he discovered the town would be destroyed accidentally. He regaled them with his and Sokka's efforts to convince the town that the volcano would soon erupt, and how he was forced to resort to stealing a woman's predictions book in order to get the town to act. He finished by sharing with them what Aunt Wu had told him when he'd returned her book, and then he sent another look over his shoulder at the uncharacteristically tired Katara.
After that, the nervousness completely evaporated; rather than tell another story, as they requested, he asked them what stories they had to tell.
Binh talked about how, one day, a pair of men had wandered into their town claiming to be tax collectors while possessing no such signs of being such. When they hadn't been able to verify their identity, they had left while cursing the town. Later that night, Binh had awoken to find them breaking down his door armed with rusty weapons and threatening words. He'd shown the pair to the building where what meager surplus they could gather were usually stored and told them all that they had was in the very back. The pair had wandered in, and Binh had locked the door behind them and begun hollering as loud as a Racoon Crow until the town had woken up, gathered their limited arms, and then captured the men.
Diu spoke of how his town had been divided between people who wanted to send more supplies to Ba Sing Se for the war effort and those who wanted to keep every scrap they could. The divide had been shallow close to the start of the war, but it had grown as time went on. Eighty years ago, an Earth Bender had visited and had physically divided the town by creating a deep ravine between the two halves, in an attempt to keep the people from coming to blows over their differences. It worked, but it also ensured that each half of the town grew ever-more distrustful and suspicious of the other. Then, about ten years ago, an infestation of Elephant Rats had begun to assail the town. Faced with the threat of starvation, the town had been able to work together to wipe out the animals and had begun to heal the rift, even if the ravine remained.
Yun regaled them with a story about how, five years ago, his town had been cut off from the outside world by a rockslide. For two weeks, they'd done their best to figure out a way to move the rocks. When it had looked like all hope was lost, the spirit of the local mountain had suddenly appeared and pushed the boulder aside, and they had showered it with thanks and gifts for its trouble. They even threw celebrations in its honor every year now.
Kyung told them about his daughter. He'd been hiking on a long mountain trail with his daughter, trying his best to mend their relationship. He hadn't wanted her to become a merchant like him. He took her on the trip in an attempt to remonstrate with his daughter, far away where no one would hear her humiliation. Instead of listening like a dutiful daughter when he'd put his foot down, she'd lashed out at him. One of his legs was stuck up to the knee in a crack in the ground she had created. No matter what they tried, he couldn't get it unstuck, even after three days. For those three days, he was forced to rely totally on his daughter, and he had truly seen how resourceful she'd become. On the eve of the third day, he'd tried to order her to leave for the village to obtain provisions and, if they were unable to figure out how to unstick his leg, the village doctor, so his leg could be removed with the best chance for his survival. She had refused to leave him defenseless and, after he'd admitted that he'd been wrong and that she would do him proud, she'd been able to summon the power to Earthbend and unstick his leg. He walked with a limp now, and his daughter was part of the Earth Kingdom's army and would one day inherit his business, if she still wanted it.
Aang told more stories, and so did they.
The five of them shared silly stories, and serious stories, and family stories, and, as the hours wore on and the world turned and, as best as they could tell, midnight struck, they grew quiet once more. This time, however, there was no awkwardness in the silence. Just contentment.
Giving a small nod to the world, Aang clapped his hands together, happy to have heard their stories. "Well, unless you all have any more stories, I think I'll turn in for the night." In truth, it had been a long day, and Aang was eager to snuggle up with Katara now that there were no uncomfortable feelings left.
"Well," Kyung eventually said, licking his lips, "there is one more."
"Oh?" Binh said, "I didn't think you had anymore in you, old man."
"This old man'll show you," he muttered under his breath. They all laughed at him, and Kyung cleared his throat. "There is the tale of… The Wanderer."
Two of the men groaned, while one of them merely raised an eyebrow. "Surely you're joking," Yun said. "You're blowing air out of your a- err, your mouth," he said, with only a brief glance towards Aang.
"The Wanderer?" Aang asked.
The four immediately turned to him. The wizened Kyung was nodding to himself and stroking his thin, gray beard, muttering about the gravitas of the title. Binh and Yun were both giving him the stink eye, while Diu's face was a mask of indifference.
"Don't bother the Avatar with old wives tales," Binh said with a dismissive wave as he turned to Aang. "Don't believe a word he says. The Wanderer-"
Binh, Kyung, and Yun began to argue once again, and they seemed to be unable to agree on even a single fact about this person.
"His hair is as dark as polished slate, and he is as tall as the pines that surround us now."
"No, he looks almost like you and I, but he is as pale as a sheet, with veins that burn darkly against his skin-"
"If you turn your arm over, you'll see your skin does that too, you moron. No, he is a man unlike any other. His form is as fluid as water and can change at his whim-"
"He's no man at all! He's a spirit-"
"No, he's the offspring of a spirit and the long-forgotten Avatar-"
"He is a man and nothing more! A man that speaks in tongues-"
"You're getting it wrong! He can't speak-"
"No, he can speak fine. He has no name-"
"He has a name: The Wanderer, obviously. That, and a thousand others. He can bend water-"
"No, he's an Earthbender."
Aang blinked rapidly. What? He'd let their words wash over him for a second there and had zoned out. They thought-
"He can bend every element-"
"You don't remember anything right. He can bend anything, from the elements to metal to people."
Aang blinked again, thoroughly confused.
"Oh, yes, of course. If he can do all that, then he must be the Avatar, right?"
That swiftly ended the conversation as they all glanced at Aang. He looked right back at them, somewhat confused and wondering just who in the world they were talking about.
Kyung looked away from Aang first, an eyebrow curled up as he looked to Diu for… confirmation, Aang guessed. The man, who hadn't said anything in the rapid-fire argument, nodded once, and Kyung grinned victoriously. "Of course he's not the Avatar. For one thing, he had hair, which Air Nomads can't grow." He chuckled, and the others all let loose a few barks of laughter.
Aang raised an eyebrow. They didn't really…
No, they did. Aang was polite with strangers, but he wasn't that polite. "Yes we can. Where… where on Earth did you hear that?"
Kyung blinked in shock, and then he pouted slightly. "Gramgram lied to me…"
Aang didn't wince, even if he knew that Kyung's expression and physical age all but guaranteed that his grandmother was probably dead. The man shook his head after a moment. "Regardless, he also obviously isn't the Avatar. Diu's seen him, and they look nothing alike."
That caused two shouts to erupt. Binh quickly put on an air of disinterest as he rolled his eyes and scoffed, but Yun's face was twisted in mock affront as they all, even Binh, cast their gazes at Diu. "Diu. You didn't tell us?"
The man shrugged limply. "We only met a few days ago. Great Uncle Kyung's known about it for years."
They muttered bitterly and then, without any more fanfare, Kyung said, "Well, you might as well tell the story again. You'll never tell it to someone as famous as the Avatar." The citizens of the Earth Kingdom all chuckled.
"Hey," Aang said, "He might tell the next one."
He got three short chuckles, but Diu himself only frowned. "By the spirits, I hope you're around longer than I am…"
The fire crackled and then, after a moment, Diu stood, the proud tone he'd had with his other stories gone completely. "Some years ago, though it was long after the elephant rat infestation, on a day that seemed like any other…
-OxOxO-
Diu ground his teeth. He wanted to do more, he did, but…
He looked up from the ground. If he could do nothing else, he would witness what was happening.
The man's clothing gave the word uniform a bad name. Yes, it was technically a standard issue uniform, mostly tan and multi-layered to give that extra bit of defense against a blast of fire or the blow of a stone with a few spots of drab green, but calling it patchwork would have been a compliment. It was threadbare and tattered, but it was a uniform.
A regular uniform would mark him as a soldier with some professional training. Its condition could mean any number of other things. Was he rich enough to pay to have a worn uniform delivered to him? Was he conniving enough to steal it, from the trash or off of a corpse? Was he a deserter? Was he a conman?
Diu scowled at the man who had introduced himself as 'Shu.' Whatever else he was, he was a bandit, plain and simple. He'd claimed as much, after all.
His gaze flicked around. The other dozen men he had with him were not uniformed, but they all had various kinds of weapons, clothing just as well worn as their leader's, and muscles and glares strong enough to use them. The other townsfolk, frightened if not terrified almost to the last, stood outside their homes.
Diu watched, and Diu ground his teeth as the man known as Shu continued to speak.
"Come now, have I not been as transparent as the wind? I have not claimed to be a taxman, nor have I attempted to sell you protection I will never provide. I represent no nation and no authority besides my own, and I haven't promised to use what you give me to better your lives while lying through my teeth."
If nothing else, Diu knew the man liked to talk.
Diu continued to grind his teeth. There was no way their village could withstand them. All of them theoretically outnumbered the bandits three to one, but that only applied if one counted the elderly and children. The adults that might actually take up arms against these ruffians, including Diu himself, weren't trained as these men at least seemed to be.
The man's genial smile soured as everyone continued to stare, fearful and silent. "I know you all are not simple. Give me your valuables-"
"We have none."
Diu's gaze darted to Old Willow, the elder of the reunited village, emerging from his meager home. He was hobbling along, walking on the newly made bridge that crossed the crack in the ground an Earthbender had created decades ago. Diu could see six of the bandits on the other side, each of them as terrifying and dangerous as the six and Shu on this side.
Diu blinked as he took in the identity of the person standing by Willow's side. "PEONY!" someone shouted, and he looked to the other side of the bridge to see that the girl's mother was being stared down by two of the bandits.
Little eleven-year-old Peony, both hands gently holding her grandfather's forearm, was staring defiantly at Shu.
Diu felt his guts twist into knots. Why had he brought her? Everyone knew she was too headstrong, too-
"Dear elder, please," Shu said again. "This place is far from the war. I have not lied to you. Do not lie to me and tell me you have no valuables."
"I tell you no lie: we have none. We were ravaged by a plague of Elephant Mice only five years ago and had to sell what little we had to recover," he said.
Even from over twenty paces away, Diu could see Shu's eyes narrow. "Of course!" he declared mockingly. "Why didn't I think of that? Did these Elephant Mice repay you for your hospitality by building that bridge you just crossed? It can't be much older than a few years, after all," he said, pointing his sword at the bridge and at the pair who'd crossed it.
Peony placed her body between the blade and her grandfather, but Old Willow scooched her aside. "I am glad you think so highly of it, noble Shu. We built it ourselves, because we didn't have the money to pay others to do such a task for us."
The man growled threateningly. Diu wanted, desperately, to tell the man to keep barking like the dog he was.
He just ground his teeth. He didn't have more than anyone else to offer. He couldn't afford to draw their attention.
Shu lifted his sword slightly, pointing it directly at the heads of the duo standing before him, his eyes narrowing again. The old man, partially hidden behind his granddaughter, simply shrugged. "I am sorry to say, but those are the facts. These mountains provide little more than enough to feed its inhabitants. Perhaps you should look elsewhere for riches?"
There was just a hint, there. That Shu was stupid for thinking they had anything to give. That Shu should be taking advice from a man at least twice his age. That Shu was a fool for not realizing all this earlier.
It might have been just a hint, but Shu imagined it was there. His nostrils flared.
"Then your food will do. We will not earn much, but it will at least fill our bellies."
"I-"
"What," Shu said, cutting the man off, an odd look in his eyes, "do you all not eat, either? Or, I suppose, if you give even a single grain of rice to us, you'll all starve?"
Old Willow said nothing, and Shu snarled. "So, I'm right, then?"
He still said nothing, and then a most cruel grin crept onto his face like the morning fog crawling over the hills. "Lucky for you all, I can actually help fix that problem."
Diu was confused. He was sure everyone else was too. What-
The sword shifted, slightly, pointing away from the pair and focusing more completely on Peony. "You all have so little food. It's a travesty! To help you, I'll generously take a mouth or two away so you no longer have to feed them. Perhaps you can even throw a feast in my honor!"
Diu didn't hear the last part of the man's statement. Little Peony? The little girl with dark eyes and dark hair who had convinced Old Willow and Old Cedar to work together? The young child who'd been asking him what the rest of the Earth Kingdom was like, and what the other nations were like, too, even though he'd barely even left their village? The girl who'd cried and cried when Old Cedar had died, even though she'd been told all her life that he was a fool for not wanting to send away yet more of the pitiful fruits of their labor away to a fight that would never reach their home? The girl whose face was rapidly losing the bravado it had pushed to the fore?
Cries erupted from the crowd.
Diu ground his teeth.
Shu took a threatening step forward, his voice dangerously low but heard, crystal clear, by every last soul there.
"If you all require an example to show that we are serious about our thievery, I will provide it."
He turned, utterly dismissing the pair behind him, his steely gaze burrowing into every last gaze that met his like a badgermole. Diu saw into their dark depths, saw, for a brief second, how utterly, completely serious he was-
He looked down. Unseen, he kept grinding his teeth, but he looked away. He would have kept looking away and standing there, silent as a grave, if he'd taken Peony and someone, anyone else, as long as it wasn't him.
Instead, a weight landed on Diu's shoulder, he bit down in surprise, and a short sharp pain erupted in his mouth. His tongue darted around, and then he spit on the ground.
It was tiny, but it was almost unmistakable. His tongue and the pain confirmed his fear: Diu had ground his teeth so hard, he had cracked a tooth!
A voice sounded in his right ear, and Diu turned, incredulous and fearful for a moment. Had a bandit snuck up behind him? Had he been chosen to-
The gaze that met his vision was utterly irreconcilable with its surroundings.
It was… a man, but this man was odd. His skin was startlingly white, like he had been kept inside the darkest room in the entire world and never let out to see the sun. He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose, but the strength in the hand on his shoulder did not convey that he was a bureaucrat in the slightest. Diu felt strength in that grip, like the strength he cloudily recalled his father possessing before he'd been called to serve the Earth Kingdom's army. His hair was thankfully plain and black, though it appeared the aging man's hair was graying early. He was also wearing an odd kind of rugged, gray coat adorned with many buttons that reached down past his knees, as well as finer clothes beneath it whose origin Diu couldn't place.
Part of the problem was that, despite being a merchant, Diu was not exactly well traveled. Part of the problem was that the front of the man's body was drenched in dried blood and mud.
The voice again said something. What that something was, Diu had no idea, because it sounded like absolute gibberish. It sounded like the babbling of a baby, the squealing cackles of a hog monkey, and some kind of childish word-game all rolled into one.
The oddity of the man struck him once again, and Diu almost smiled. Maybe this was some nightmare caused by a spirit, and he'd wake up in a few minutes completely-
The man's eyes, no longer looking at Diu, narrowed, and Diu turned to look at what he was glaring at. Shu had raised his sword at the man. "Who are you?"
The odd man looked, for a moment, between the chipped tooth on the ground and Diu. He smiled and said something that, again, sounded completely, utterly alien to his ears, which was an achievement, because the man looked really, sincerely sorry, and was probably trying to say something to that effect, but Diu just did not understand.
Which was also an achievement, because Diu was fairly certain everyone spoke the same language, from the Fire Nation to the Water Tribes, and everyone in between. There were accents and such, from what he had heard, and his father had once remarked that the people in Ba Sing Se sounded remarkably different from the people around here, but he'd still been able to understand them, so where-
The man had left Diu's side, and was now standing alone in front of Diu, the rest of the town, and all the bandits. Diu couldn't see his face, but he heard him say something unintelligible once more.
Shu squinted at the odd man, his eyebrows drawn together and his upper lip pulled up in abject incredulity. "Onyx, you're from up north. Did you-"
"Not a word, boss," Onyx said from across the bridge. "I've heard those ash makers talk, too, and even I can understand them through their accent."
Shu shouted more at the man, asking him who he was and why he was there. He even asked if he had been taken by the spirits, which Diu had privately wondered as well. He couldn't think of any other reasonable explanation for a grown man as old as this one to be unable to speak properly.
Diu couldn't see through the man's back, but the way he held his hands behind him seemed to indicate frustration… and what was that in his hand?
Shu whirled back towards Old Willow and Peony, but his blade remained pointed at the odd man. "You! Do you know who he is? Why-"
The man shouted. Diu's hands leapt to his ears as he winced. The odd man was so loud, it felt as if he'd yelled at the top of his lungs right next to Diu's head! How had he done that?
Shu's gaze was now wholly focused on the odd man, as was the focus of all of the other bandits. Diu assessed them, and then he blinked in shock. They were no longer arrogant or cruel looking, but nervous.
They glanced between the odd man and their leader.
The man pointed the object in his right hand at Shu, and Diu saw that it was a stick. His gaze narrowed, and he saw that it was no simple stick, but a carved, polished stick that glinted slightly in the midday light.
Then, the most odd thing of all happened.
He pointed at his left hand, and a sword, distinct and different from any sword Diu had seen but undoubtedly a sword all the same, appeared without further warning.
Confusion and shock rippled through the onlookers, no longer bandit and townsperson but a single, unified crowd of amazement, as the sword that had not been now was. He looked around at the crowd and then, seeing their reaction, held the sword into the air. Diu saw a few shrink back slightly, townsperson and bandit both.
Then he dropped the sword and, with another wave of his stick, it disappeared.
Before their very eyes, the sword that hadn't been and then was suddenly wasn't again. Diu's gaze snapped between where the sword had fallen and the odd man repeatedly. Then, he saw that everyone was doing the same thing.
Everyone, except for one. Shu was studying the odd man instead.
The man pointed at Shu, and the bandit flinched as the odd man said something. Nothing else happened, however, and the odd man sighed loudly.
He repeated what he had just done again, and pointed at Shu with his left hand, pointing at Shu's sword and then at the ground. Dui blinked again.
Was… this man there to protect them?
More questions began to form, but Shu cut off any he might have asked himself with a bark of laughter. The man frowned, and began to mutter to himself. Shu looked at his compatriots.
"What are you thinking, boys?" he asked.
"Freaky shit, bossman. We're better off leaving."
"You serious? If we disarm, we'd be defenseless, and that's what he wants us to do. We gotta fight."
"Monkey feathers, you blockhead. You saw what that thing just did. What else can it do?"
"Maybe it's just the spirit of making swords appear and disappear? Maybe it just likes your sword-"
"I think," Shu said, interrupting his men and the odd man, "that if we bring this guy to someone important, we're gonna be set for life."
That gave everyone pause, and the odd man glanced at the bandits as they focused on their leader. "Think about it. There's no way he'd confront us if he thought he had no chance of beating us, which means he's either decent at fighting or he has more freaky powers. Maybe he's some weird spirit who can make swords disappear. Maybe he's some weird bender. Maybe he's the Avatar, for all we know."
He shrugged, and his face became a rictus of avarice. "All I know is that having the ability to make swords disappear sounds like something the Earth Kingdom army would pay lots of gold for if he's any good at it."
Weapons were readied as they continued to talk, and the stance of the odd man grew tense. He was talking again, the words leaving his mouth sounding vaguely measured. His stick remained down by his side.
Next to Diu, someone stepped forward, and he realized that a bandit actually had snuck around this time. His unshaven face grinned at him with teeth far more broken than his own, and, in the seams and cracks of the simple spear, dried blood rested like dull red rivers.
"I don't know," one of the men on the other side of the bridge said, "what if he is good in a fight?"
"Then we get paid more," the man said, "besides, even if he can do whatever he's doing to all of our weapons, there's still thirteen of us, and I have our secret weapon. We'll beat him to a pulp if we have to get him to stop, but we'll beat him."
Shu stopped on the ground, and he entered a fighting stance. The man beside Diu stepped forward, the bandits on the other side of the bridge also began to move. Shu continued to speak.
"For being the site of our best payday yet, I'll be magnanimous. If you all give us two bags of rice, we'll leave once we beat this… thing," he shouted. The odd man was still speaking at an even pace. Diu wanted to shout for him to turn around, to give up, to bow his head because these people would kill him.
Diu tried to grind his teeth, and he swore as pain flared through his mouth, and for the first time, his watery eyes noticed that Shu was not wearing any shoes.
The fight began.
While the group on the other side of the bridge began to group up, four of the roughest looking men on their side charged forward, crying loudly, while the spearman that had passed Diu by stalked forward silently. Diu's eyes widened, and he fought against the lump in his throat, desperate to scream-
The man spoke, and an otherworldly glowing shield erupted around him. Four blows, and then a fifth, struck it, and each and every one glanced off of the shield and didn't come close to striking the odd man.
Three of the men were stupefied by the sight, but two – another man with a sword and the spearman – continued their assault, undaunted by their ineffectiveness. Three thrusts of the spear and a swipe of the sword were followed by weaker blows from the other three.
None of it did anything, and some of the tension in the man's stance dissipated. The five were flummoxed, from what Diu could see.
Then, as they paused in their assault, winded and confused, the barrier dropped, and a lightshow began. Despite the whirling colors and the collapse of each man in turn, it was the odd man that held Diu's gaze.
He moved like how his father had described a bender moving. The stick twirled and jumped and sailed through the air, guided by the odd man's hand, and the odd man himself did much the same, moving with determination and without deliberation, sending streaks of glowing light towards each of the men – even towards the spearman behind him that he couldn't have seen.
By the end of the short burst of movement, the five men were lying motionless on the ground, and the people of his home let out a small cheer. Diu noticed that something was… wrong with a few of the bandits, but before he could study them closely, Shu shouted once more. "Everyone, with me!"
The man punched forward, and a solid block of earth jumped up from behind him and began sailing towards the man. He raised his shield again, and the other six from across the bridge and the man standing beside Shu all rushed forward.
The odd man strode forward, towards Shu. A man with daggers lunged forward, and he was repealed backwards with a flick, stopped, and then hit with a red light that also reasserted the pull of the Earth as he collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
Shu sent another two rocks towards the man, and Diu realized, quite suddenly, that the man was an absolutely terrible earth bender. The rocks he was hurling were hardly bigger than Diu's head and were traveling through the air at a leisurely pace. That was the kind of blow that only threatened people who had no military training.
Still, Diu knew those rocks could knock one unconscious or kill if aimed correctly.
Neither hit their mark. The odd man flicked his stick, and both rocks paused in the air. Then they dropped, like a stone through water. Shu's face was concentration incarnate, and two bandits barreled across the bridge, brandishing their weapons.
Two lights flared from the stick, and both tripped on the air and went tumbling forward. Two more lights hit them, and both did not rise from the ground when they stopped moving.
Another three rocks flew forward, larger and moving faster, speeding towards the odd man. From this angle, Diu could now see the man's eyes widen fractionally. Then, with a few sharp, thrusting movements of his arm and stick, two of the rocks were deflected to his sides, while another sailed just over his head and into a house. Screams erupted, and Diu saw the man's pale face scowl angrily.
The boulders had covered the arrival of the last four. Shu still stood in the back, concentrating. Two more lights flew from the man's stick, and the men he hit yelped as their weapons flew from their grasp.
The man dodged the weapons as they hurled towards him with practiced ease, his stick dancing through the air even as he jumped back to his feet.
Diu couldn't believe how agile he appeared to be despite the coat he was wearing.
From his new position, he disarmed the others and then he began to hit them with yet more lights. One began to sing an old drinking song Diu recognized, while another suddenly began to float in the air, as if held up by his leg. Slowly, the odd man looked around, as if expecting… something. Not an attack, Diu didn't think, but he wasn't a warrior, so perhaps-
Without any warning, the other three went down, the floating man was hit by another spell that changed his shouting into an incomprehensible mess, and Shu…
Shu was still smiling.
He rotated his arms widely and swiftly brought his fists towards the center of his body as he took a large step backwards. The odd man stared at the bandit he'd made to float for a moment longer and then hit him with the red light Diu had noticed he'd used on the others to take them out of the fight.
Shu's foot landed behind him, and the fists close to his chest shot forward like an arrow.
The odd man slowly sank into the ground, and Shu laughed loudly. "It was a good fight," he lied, "but let's see how good you fight after a few minutes under the dirt. Nighty-night, you-"
The man hadn't looked the least bit worried, but Shu hadn't noticed at all. The man rotated just the slightest bit in place-
CRACK!
And he was gone. Shu's deliriously happy face disappeared in an instant, and he looked around furtively.
The man was nowhere to be seen.
"WHERE ARE YOU!?" He shouted. "YOU- you chattering monkey-hog. You-"
CRACK!
The man was back, but he took no move to take out Shu. He simply stood to his right, slightly bored and mostly worried as he continued to look around the village for something. Diu had no clue what he was worried about-
Shu stumbled backwards, fear written clearly on his face. He gulped, glanced around-
Diu's eyes widened. The eyes of everyone there widened. The odd man's eyes widened.
Shu's eyes landed on Peony, and he lunged forward, sending the old man to the ground. He yelped like a wounded dog, and the townspeople echoed Peony's terrified scream.
"PEONY!" Her mother screamed her daughter's name again.
Shu whirled back around, his sword pressed against the girl's face while his other hand gripped her throat. He was breathing hard, his gaze snapping from the odd man, to the town, to his defeated men, down to the girl in his grasp, and back to the odd man.
The odd man immediately straightened up and backed away, towards what had to be a pit of quicksand Shu had made. "BACK OFF!" He shouted. The odd man did just that, though it was anyone's guess if he understood them, given they couldn't understand him.
Shu's breathing didn't even in the slightest, though he seemed to be thinking. "Drop that… stick. Wait-"
He cut himself off, and his gaze searched furtively once more.
It landed on Diu.
Spirits, no.
Shu's gaze bore into his own. "You. Take his stick from him. Then unclothe him."
Diu almost balked, but the man's sword cut into Peony's cheek. She cried out for her mother.
Diu found it within himself to take a step towards death.
Then he took another.
And another.
And, finally, after many such shaky steps, he reached the odd man, and he realized at the same time that the odd man was also looking at Diu. He smiled, but Diu thought that it was a sad kind of smile.
It did not reach his eyes, which shone with determination.
Diu, careful and nervous and slightly terrified he'd be knocked out – if that was what this odd man had done to the people lying motionlessly on the ground – gently tugged at the wand in the odd man's hand. He blinked, looked between Shu and Peony and Diu, and then he smiled sadly again and let the wand go. Diu held onto it gently, and, for the briefest moment, he felt it… bump against his hand.
What in Yangchen's name…
"THROW IT HERE! UNCLOTHE HIM!" Shu shouted. Diu grimaced, threw the stick towards Shu, and then began to feel the man's odd clothing for a way to disrobe him. The coat was easy enough, but the ensemble beneath was not. He noticed the buttons on the front, below the strip of cloth he had tied around his neck. The man merely raised an eyebrow as Diu fumbled with the clothing – there was a lot of dried blood – and, with both of them moving slowly and pausing whenever Shu barked at them for moving too quickly, too suspiciously, the form-fitting clothing came away. Next was the tie around his neck, and then the shirt that had been below the overcoat.
Beneath that, was some kind of scale, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Diu was absolutely sure this was some kind of spirit that was just playing with them all.
Then, when nothing else happened, he took another look and saw that it was clothing made from scales. The odd man snorted, and Diu felt his face heat as he realized that the odd man thought Diu's reaction was funny.
That layer, too, came off.
Diu couldn't help but stare at the scars. Some looked like the kinds that were from falling down a ravine or getting cut by a thorny bush of one kind or another, but others looked like he'd been mauled by wild animals or cut by every kind blade under the sun.
Then the shoes came off and the pants came down, revealing some kind of odd undergarment. Diu grimaced and stood up.
The man met his eyes, and for the first time, Diu realized that they were a bright, iridescent green that he wasn't sure he'd ever seen anywhere besides the rolling green hills of his home. Certainly he'd never seen it in a human's eyes before.
Quickly, Diu backed away from the man. The odd man shivered slightly in the cool spring breeze, but he looked otherwise unaffected by his near-nakedness. He was still calm. Shu's breathing had leveled out somewhat, but he still tightly gripped Peony's neck in one hand and the other still pressed his blade into the girl's cheek, where a thin red line had stained his clean sword.
The odd man stared directly at them, and said something unintelligible. He raised an eyebrow, and Shu snarled. "Now, step back into that quicksand."
The man stood there, staring into Shu's eyes, and Shu snarled once more. He pushed the girl and himself forward a step. He jerked his head towards the man. "Move back!"
The man was talking now. Diu still didn't understand a word. Shu was growing angrier. His gaze jerked to Diu-
PBBBBT!
Shu paused. Diu paused. The town paused. It seemed that the whole world paused, utterly frozen by what the man had just done. "Did… did you just-"
PBBBT!
He interrupted Shu's incredulous question by doing it again. The odd man had just blown another raspberry at Shu. His eyes still held the same, steely determination, but his mouth had unequivocally contradicted the rest of his being.
"What-"
He tried his best to sound a bird call, a whiney, and the nattering of a mindless child. His mouth continued to mock, while the rest of him stayed absolutely, completely still. Shu's breathing was picking up, his eyes glued to the odd man.
"Are… you not taking me seriously? Do… do you think I'm funny? IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK?"
Very, very subtly, the odd man's gaze shifted. He began nodding his head and biting his teeth together, producing click after click. Shu's breathing intensified again, and his sword jumped away from the girl and pointed towards the odd man. "I'M NOT FUCKING AROUND HERE YOU-"
Peony, who he'd been looking at when he'd made the biting and nodding motions, who had given the smallest nod in response to his, bit into the arm of the man holding her throat with all the force an eleven-year-old could muster.
Shu flinched. His attention was unevenly torn between the pain in his arm and the girl that had caused it and the antics of the odd man and the danger he was in by remaining there without help and-
The odd man flashed a small smile at the girl, and, with a roared word, a pair of lights shot out of both of the man's hands, faster than the flight of any arrow or any bird. Diu almost didn't see them.
The pair of lights shot out of his hands, into Shu, and Shu died.
He did not die because of a fireball hurled by a Firebender, nor in the shower of stone and masonry of an Earthbender's attack, nor even because of a spike made of ice or the slice of a blade.
Instead, one light impacted the man's shoulder, and the arm holding onto the girl's neck separated itself from the rest of his body. No blade nor element had as much as touched him, but the arm fell away all the same.
Then, so soon after the impact of the first light that the arm had not yet begun to bleed, the second light impacted Shu's neck.
It took a second for Peony to be covered in blood. It took three for the body to collapse to the ground and rejoin its missing arm and head. It took four for the man to reach the girl, and it took five for her to start screaming like a wounded koala sheep.
Naturally, most of the town erupted into noise as well. Screams at the display of violence, cheers that the man was dead, concern for the girl. Diu heard a few people puking at the sight of the body deconstructing itself like that, at the sight of blood gushing from the two stumps of the body, at the glassy-eyed rage just beginning to shift into realization on the dead man's face, at-
Diu was among them.
One person continued screaming in time with Peony, however. Not in terror or fear, but in abject relief. When Diu was done puking, he looked up to see that the crying, blood-covered Peony was being clutched to her mother's chest, while the odd man stood above them with a profoundly sad look on his face.
Diu remembered everything from that day, but one moment stood out above all the rest.
He accepted the thanks they gave him, though he seemed to balk at them showing him the reverence a spirit was often due.
He helped them gather the weapons and money the bandits had and helped them tie the living ones up with complicated knots he made with a few twists of his wand.
He cleaned up every speck of blood and gore and vomit, smoothed out the holes the dead man had torn in the ground, did his best to stiffen the quicksand in the center of town, and fixed the holes the rocks one rock had torn through a house.
He partially healed the wounds that Old Willow had suffered from being pushed to the ground that the town barber had said might kill someone as old as him without a professional doctor, dressed him in bandages, and still refused any reverence he was shown.
He produced water out of thin air in an attempt to bathe, until he'd been shown to a house.
He played with the children, showering them with lights that made them laugh, or grow antlers, or changed the color of their hair and skin, ignorant or uncaring of the discussion Diu had with some of the other adults about what he was; a discussion that eventually recalled that the fortune tellers and magicians sometimes had sticks they called wands that they waved about when they were telling the future or practicing sleight of hand, and that, perhaps, that was related to what he was.
He learned a few words from them, though he spoke with an accent so thick Diu could only pretend to understand what he was saying most of the time. Peony, washed and nearly as pale as the odd man, told him her name, which he eventually repeated flawlessly. When she and the rest of the town did their best to ask for his name, he uttered a few words that they just didn't know the meaning of.
They committed the sound of his name to their memory regardless.
He accepted a few meager provisions and refused any other worldly goods. He accepted a desperate hug from Peony and a bone-crushing one from her mother.
He left the town
The one thing Diu remembered the most, however, was how the sadness on the man's face at the sight of Peony crying shifted to relief when he looked between the dead man and the bawling girl.
-OxOxO-
The campfire crackled.
"Well, this is a right mess you've gotten yourself into this time, Potter."
The campfire continued to crackle, and a large branch was pushed into the fire to adjust it slightly. It hardly needed it, but the action was performed with a not insignificant amount of angry swiftness.
"On top of everything else, you got fucking complacent and traumatized a kid. Excellent!"
Yes, he'd saved her and the town, but he'd gotten complacent. If he'd just stunned the bastard and everyone else, she wouldn't have nearly died, and-
Moodily, he continued poking the fire with the stick. The day had started with a heaping dose of anxiety. Harry had spent the past week straight sleeping at the Ministry, anticipating something going wrong. He'd attended every last minute of the ongoing trial, anticipating something going wrong. He'd been standing at the ready, watching the proceedings of Delphini Riddle's trial and awaiting a sentence, anticipating something going wrong.
He jabbed the branch into the fire vigorously.
The outcome was nearly predetermined, considering just how much evidence they had. How she would have been sentenced was anyone's guess. Azkaban had been purged of Dementors, and, as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Harry was acutely aware that if she'd been sentenced there anyway, the number of wizards and witches he'd have to deploy there to keep the place even partially secure would have placed a significant strain on the Department's budget and manpower. The veil was technically an option, but no one was absolutely, positively sure that it just killed people or sent them to the afterlife, and the last thing anyone wanted was for her to waltz out of the veil one day with an army of inferi at her back or something.
The tip of the branch crumbled into ash, and he kept pushing it in.
The last he'd heard, the hope was that the British Ministry could hold her long enough to beg the International Confederation of Wizards to lock her up somewhere. Nurmengard, maybe. He knew from a trip to America that MACUSA had someplace called Greasewood in the middle of one of their deserts the ICW sent some people to. He had a vague recollection that Cambodia and Russia had some super secure prisons as well.
The branch crumbled again, and he poked the little pyramid he'd made of wood enough that it finally collapsed with a swirl of orange embers.
Harry snapped.
With a roar, he flung the branch off into the forest. "NOT THAT ANY OF IT MATTERS!"
The point of what would happen to Delphini was moot, at the moment, because Harry was somewhere! Who knew where!
He stood there, panting heavily. Delphini had acquired a wand from Merlin knew where, somehow, and another, very broken looking Time Turner, also somehow, and she'd made a speech about taking his family from him like he'd taken her father before lobbing the Time Turner at his family.
Frustratingly believably, the first thing he'd thought to do was to summon it to himself while Apparating away.
There had been a bright flash of light, a disorientation that overcame the supreme hurdle of being the worst form of magical transportation Harry had ever experienced, and he'd landed in a rice paddy and nearly drowned.
Upon winning his fight against the vegetation and his sopping wet clothes, he'd been completely unsure of where he was, besides being at least partially sure he wasn't in Britain – things couldn't have changed so much that they had rice paddies in Britain, right?
After fleeing from what he assumed were Muggles, slowly hiking through the woods for several hours, and saving that village from what he was mostly certain were bandits, he still didn't have any idea, except, perhaps, Asia, based on the physical appearance of the people and the clothing they wore. The fact that he hadn't the foggiest idea what they were saying meant he probably wasn't in Europe, because he'd picked up a bit of experience with languages across the continent.
He calmed, slightly, and sat back down at the fire, gripping his head in his hands. Considering, however, the object that had been thrown at him, a sinking feeling in his gut and a voice in his head were both telling him that he might have traveled back through time and space.
It was the best idea he could come up with. He'd used a lot of magic – to dry himself, whatever he could think of on his hike, during that fight to do his best to make as much magical noise and hopefully tip off whatever congress or ministry had jurisdiction here, and after the fight as well – and there had been absolutely no response.
Harry leaned backwards off of the log he'd taken a seat on, slipping his hands under his glasses to rub his eyes. Okay. He could process what that personally meant for him later. He focused on the practical considerations. He was good with those.
He was back in time, probably in Asia, maybe?
His hands fell away from his face. No, that wasn't right. He'd traveled a lot since his Hogwarts days, doing what he could where he could do it in an attempt to help win back some of the goodwill the British Ministry had lost during Voldemort's second rise to power.
He snapped his fingers. Right, it was sub-saharan Africa that was completely wandless, as the man he'd killed had been. East Asia had wands and another, parallel system he couldn't quite recall the name of…
He frowned. Then what-
Harry blinked. He blinked again and, when his vision didn't change, he sat bolt upright.
There were many things Harry James Potter was, and many things Harry James Potter wasn't.
An astronomer was not one of the things he was. He'd gotten an O.W.L. in the subject and had spent exceedingly little time brushing up on his studies in the decades since when it wasn't necessary for his work. As he'd moved away from being an Auror, who needed to know such information for potion brewing and the occasional case, and towards being the Head of the Department, the number of times he'd had to brush up on the subject were countable on both his hands.
Despite his lack of knowledge of the subject, Harry had spent five-years worth of late nights staring up at the sky mapping constellations, finding the planets, and writing about how to determine the moon's phase.
When Harry had opened his eyes to look up at the sky, it was undeniably beautiful. A vast, unbordered canvas of stars and swirling light emanating from stars or reflected off of celestial objects. Certainly, you couldn't have gotten such a view just about anywhere in Britain that wasn't completely isolated from the constantly burning lights of Muggles.
When Harry had opened his eyes and beheld the majesty of the night sky, the first coherent thought he'd had besides a formless, instinctual appreciation for just how amazing it looked, was that he didn't recognize a single inch of it.
He kept looking, trying to find the constellations, or the zodiac, or even the north star. He found nothing he recognized. Perhaps, he might have been able to explain it away as the effect of traveling hundreds or even thousands of years, but-
Finally, when he looked up at the wide, pearly moon, he could confidently say that that wasn't the same moon.
The landmarks were all wrong. It- it just wasn't the moon. The dark grays weren't where they should have been, and the large craters he remembered being there were in completely different positions as well!
Unthinking, Harry Potter let out a desperate chuckle. "Merlin, I am in for it when I get back."
His promises, to Ginny, and Ron, and Hermione, and James and Albus and Lily, and everyone else all rose to his mind unbidden. To be a better friend and husband and father, especially father.
He abruptly strangled his chuckle, and it turned into a sob. He was in for it, yes, but only if he did get back.
-OxOxO-
A/N 1: I couldn't wait any longer. I've read a couple of the other Harry Potter/Avatar crossovers, and I wanted to get this idea put onto paper. What if it was him from around the last time we see Harry? What if he could still use his magic? What if he used a Flame-Freezing Charm and plug walked his way into a Fire Nation encampment and put the fear of god in them?
I don't have much else planned about the story at the moment. Harry's misadventures, taking place a few years before the start of the show, will be its own contained thing away from Team Avatar for the vast majority of it. He beats up some people, he helps some people, he interacts with spirits, he wonders if he'll ever make it home, he does some wacky stuff with magic, and once I've got more of an idea where I'd want this to go, maybe more.
I'll also admit that I haven't technically ever actually watched the entirety of Avatar: the Last Airbender. I'd certainly like to, at some point, and I've consumed a frankly idiotic amount of content about the universe without watching the show, but hey! Maybe I will!
As for timeframes, Harry's obviously from after the end of Cursed Child, while Aang first hears about him some short but indeterminate amount of time after the comics (which I also haven't read) and before the flashback stuff from Korra.
A/N 2: If you'd like to donate to support me monetarily, search for Sugarcane Soldier on the website of the Patrons.
Thank you to WarmasterOku, Afforess, UNSC_Kawakaze, Theewizzz, and Vee for supporting this story and everything else I write. Make sure to vote if you haven't yet!